


What Comes Next

by rinskiroo



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Awkward Poe, Canon Universe, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-03-23
Packaged: 2019-04-06 18:28:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14062863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rinskiroo/pseuds/rinskiroo
Summary: Poe knows all about the scavenger girl.  Knows about her bravery and tenacity.  Knows she’s a crack shot and a talented mechanic.  Knows that she’s kind-hearted and true to her friends.  Neither Finn or BB-8 told him how pretty she is.  Well, maybe Finn had said something in his almost too cool, casual way, but Poe thinks he wasn’t really prepared.





	What Comes Next

Poe passes around hugs and handshakes to those that had survived.  They are few, and maybe not enough, but they made it through.  Some form of the Resistance, of hope, lives on.

There’s a warble and a beep that he recognizes, could pick out of any crowd.  BB-8’s asking someone to check out his new antenna—see how straight it is?

“I see,”  she says.  “Looks good.”

Poe knows all about the scavenger girl.  Knows about her bravery and tenacity.  Knows she’s a crack shot and a talented mechanic.  Knows that she’s kind-hearted and true to her friends.  Neither Finn or BB-8 told him how pretty she is.  Well, maybe Finn had said something in his almost too cool, casual way, but Poe thinks he wasn’t really prepared.

“I’m Poe,”  he says, offering his hand.  He almost doesn’t believe it when she takes it and smiles.

 

They’re on the run, again, not for the last time.  At least, Poe hopes it’s not the last time.  Weaving through crowded streets, nearly knocking over people carrying baskets and trying to go about their lives.  The planet, the mission—they all blend together in just trying to stay one step ahead of the First Order.

His partner grabs his arm and yanks him into an alcove tucked between two crumbling huts.  She wedges him further into the crevice and shushes him when he protests.

“We should really—”  They can’t stop.  The ship is just a few klicks away.  They could make it if they ran.  But she shushes him again, stands closer than necessary and smashes her hand against his mouth.  It’s a pilot sandwich made out of the dusty sandstone wall behind him and Rey pushing in close on his front.

His eyes glance over her—nearly the same height, maybe a centimeter or two shorter.  While he knows his eyes are wild, searching for the way out, hers are focused, until they close.  He watches her draw in a deep breath and feels her chest expand against his.  The air hums around him in the way that he knows is the vibration of the Force.

“What are—”  he tries to mumble against her hand, but she squeezes his cheeks to make him stop talking.

A few seconds pass and a flurry of white passes in front of the alley they’ve squeezed into.  Poe’s eyes are wide and his hands grip into blue cloths hanging off of Rey.  He wants to wrap his arms around her, shield her from the fire that’s surely about to come, but her fingers are gripping his face and she’s not letting go.  Her eyes are still closed and the air still resonates with power.

The troopers pause for but a moment, and then they rush off again.  They push pedestrians out of their way and lumber through the market, but they don’t turn towards their hiding spot.

He wants to say something—about how brilliant she is, how he’s in awe, but she grabs his hand and pulls him back out into the crush of people.

 

Poe gets the chance to repay her when they’re on the run again.  Those TIEs would do anything to knock that ship out of the sky.  They neglect everyone else in favor of focusing their fire on the _Millennium Falcon_.  They really should have learned earlier—can’t leave the Black Leader unattended.

He lines them up and takes them out, one right after another.  Rey must have been paying attention during the pilot briefings she pretends not to accidentally drop in on.  She’s keyed into his choreography and sets up the targets for him.  Flies them right into position and they fall like so many pieces of a child’s game.

Behind him, BB-8 whistles his praises.

“We had help on that one, buddy,”  Poe tells his companion, but BB-8 knows.  The droid informs him that he he was sending a message to Rey to let her know what a great job she did.

“Yeah, I guess we make quite the team.”

He wants to tell her.  Never really had trouble with words before, but every time he almost gets up the nerve, something else comes up.  Some other mission, or they have to run again, or someone else is there taking away that moment.  When both crafts come to rest in the cruiser’s bay, Poe tells himself now is the time.

He pushes out of his mind that the day in the alley might have been the time.  Or after they’d rescued that captured Senator.  Or liberated that work camp.  Or shut down a planet full of First Order factories.  Those all would have been good times to tell her.  But _this_ time.  This time.

Rey rushes over to BB-8 and crouches down to rub his dome and tell him what a good job he did.  Her skin is flush from the fight and she’s all smiles, again.  The floor underneath them makes a slight tremble as the cruiser leaps into hyperspace.

“Thanks for the assist,”  Rey says as she stands.

“Anytime,”  he replies with an easy smile.  “I mean it.  Anytime.  With anything.”

 _Smooth, Dameron.  Real smooth._ Maybe it’s not the time.

“Anything?”  she questions, her eyebrow lifting and her smile shifting from excitement to something Poe would almost describe as flirty.

 

The first kiss is sweet, tentative.  In an empty corridor late at night.  They’re not trying to be secret or sneak around, but Poe doesn’t want to hear the ribbings from his pilots.  Rey’s young, inexperienced, or so he thinks.  Not that Poe has much to compare it to—his life was always too full of flying, and fighting.

The second kiss, where she pins him against the wall after they’ve just narrowly avoided being blown up, again, tells him maybe he was wrong.  He decides he doesn’t want to think of some desert urchin who kissed Rey in the past.  She slides her tongue past his lips and digs her fingers into his jacket.  When she’s done taking the air from his lungs, she tells him to stop treating her with kid gloves.

Poe obliges.

He kisses her again, just before they set off on the last mission.  They’re going to storm the last First Order stronghold.  The Resistance has chased them across the galaxy and tracked them back to their final bastion.  Poe in the sky, and Rey through the front door.

This kiss, it’s in front of everyone, and while many suspected, there are some shocked gasps and several chuckles and cheers.

“Trust the Force,”  Rey tells him, her forehead pressed up against his.  They’d talked about the Force before, and how even those who couldn’t use its power could still be influenced by it.  More than that, he knew she’s telling him to trust her.  They can do this.  They will see each other again.

“Rey,”  he says her name quietly as his fingers grip the chain around his neck.  He pulls it until the links break and then takes her hand from where she’s clutching onto his jacket.  He slips it onto her finger, and they laugh when it’s a little too loose and he has to push it onto her middle finger where it fits snuggly.  “For what comes next.”

Poe doesn’t need to ask, and Rey doesn’t need to answer.  Their hearts and energies have been entwined together for awhile now.  She knows his love, his trauma, his hopes, and his doubts—just as he knows hers.  She kisses him again before she goes and he prays to his mother and the Force to watch over her.

 

On a green planet, far from the Core, a little girl with curls in her hair sits on her grandfather’s lap.  She asks him all sorts of questions about space and the stars, and then about trees and bugs, birds and if the first people who made a cake knew it would taste _so good_ before they started.

“Where’s Mum?”  a young woman asks as she walks up to the two sitting out on the front porch.

Poe laughs and ruffles his granddaughter’s hair.  He looks over his daughter—looking so much like her mother did back then.  Brown hair, long and straight—she’s got Shara’s nose, though.  “You’ve got my mother’s nose, you know,”  he says, like somehow she’s forgotten.

“Yes, Papa,”  she says with a smile, though he can tell a bit exasperated.  “Where’s Mum?”

“Oh, I’m sure she’ll be along soon.  Had to go clear out another First Order base.”

“Nana went to the waterfall.  Said she’d be back for supper,”  the little girl says to her mother.

“You think General Hugs hangs out at waterfalls these days, sprout?”  Poe asks the little girl with a squeeze to her belly.

“If he does, he’s fish food!”  She giggles out the rest of the joke—one of the many they make at the long dead General’s expense.

“What do you think I used to catch all these?”  a familiar voice calls.  The little girl scrambles off his lap to run and and greet her grandmother.

Instead of a staff at her side, she carries a fishing pole, and in her other hand, a rig of several plump, tasty looking fish.  She laughs as the girl pokes at the dead fish and squeals.  Poe thinks Rey looks as beautiful as she always did.  Hair grey, face lined by the years, but she still shines like the sun.  He knows his memory is failing, day by day, and his knees have all but given out, but when he sees her, he feels like he’s slipped back thirty years.

“Fish for dinner?”  Rey asks as she bends over to kiss the top of his head.

“Better than field rations.  Tired of those.”

As the sun sets on the Yavin moon, Rey carefully settles into his lap and he curls his arms around her.  They watch as the stars come out, alone on the porch, having left the chaos of all their children and grandchildren inside.  They travel slowly back through time, pointing out the places they’ve been.

“I can’t pick a favorite,”  she says when he asks.

“All of the ones where we were together—those are my favorite,”  he tells her.

“Smooth, Dameron.”  She chuckles and kisses his cheek.  “You’ve got me; you don’t have to win me over.”

“Won’t stop me from trying.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://rinskiroo.tumblr.com/).

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Crash Bang](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15259440) by [rinskiroo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rinskiroo/pseuds/rinskiroo)




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